WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #253, DECEMBER 4, 1994 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Haiti: "Flagrant Injustices" by US 2. Haiti Pays Debts, Postpones Vote 3. Former President Wins Second Term in Uruguay 4. New President For a Divided Mexico 5. Police And Protesters Clash As Mexican President Takes Office 6. Mexico: Dec. 8 Deadline for Chiapas? 7. UN Verification Mission Finally Arrives in Guatemala 8. Guatemalan Protesters End Occupation, Continue Hunger Strike 9. Slander Charges Against Salvadoran Rebel Leader Dismissed 10. Nicaragua News Briefs: Ortega Hospitalized, Worker Protests 11. In Other News: Venezuela, Brazil (sort of) & Suriname 12. Upcoming Events in the New York City Area * ISSN#: 1068-5332. These updates are published weekly. A one-year subscription is $25 by first class mail. 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SEND FOR YOUR GIFT SUB TODAY!!! * 1. HAITI: "FLAGRANT INJUSTICES" BY US Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in Haiti report that on Nov. 24 a Haitian soldier and six Australians from the UN police monitoring group arrested a leading pro-democracy activist in the southwestern city of Jeremie, Father Joachim Samedi. Samedi was charged with theft, looting and attempted murder in a warrant prepared by Ilavwa Louis, a member of the rightwing paramilitary group Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), which has been linked to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Three others were also arrested. Samedi was held at a military compound for one hour and then given a provisional release. He can be tried at any time; the local prosecutor is also the president of the local FRAPH branch. Three thousand protesters gathered at the military compound to support Samedi while he was in detention. US troops arrived to defend the compound from the crowd, pushing aside CPT observers Duane Ediger and Joel Klassen, who were trying to photograph the events. The CPT is asking for calls and faxes to protest Samedi's arrest. Contact US ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright (212- 415-4000, fax 212-415-4443); US State Dept. Haiti desk (fax 202- 647-2901); US ambassador to Haiti William Swing (fax 011-509-231- 641). [CPT Action Alert 11/24/94; Haiti Info Vol. 3, #5, 12/3/94] The Jeremie incident fits a pattern of recent attacks on grassroots activists by UN and US forces. On Nov. 7 eight trucks of US troops were called to the Port-au-Prince headquarters of the Haiti Electricity (EDH) company, where workers were staging a sit-in to protest the installation of the new director, Daniel Belizaire, who had said he wouldn't recognize the union. One worker, Stanley Francois, refused to leave; several US soldiers beat him and led him away in handcuffs. The Haitian government backed down four days later and replaced Belizaire with an EDH staff member, Carl Preval. [Haiti Info Vol. 3, #4, 11/19/94] On Nov. 29 35 US soldiers arrived at the town of Bocozelle in the northwest region and arrested three peasants, on instructions from former local FRAPH head Jean-Robert Elisee and wealthy landowner Edouard Vieux. Later that day, Father Frantz Lichtle, the local representative for the Catholic Church's Peace and Justice Commission human rights group, went to the military barracks to make inquiries about the arrested peasants. A US soldier told the priest that the GIs had the right to arrest anybody, anywhere and for any reason. Vieux arrived, and he and the soldier threatened Lichtle; a second US soldier then threw the priest out. On Nov. 30 the Peace and Justice Commission's Gonaives office issued a statement strongly protesting the three arrests and the "odious behavior" of the US soldiers. Lichtle protested the "collusion between the powerful landowner...FRAPH and US soldiers." "What kind of justice is possible," he asked, "in the case of flagrant injustices committed by the occupying army?" An unnamed development and literacy consultant reported to Haiti Info on a conversation he held with a US officer on the island of La Gonave: the officer told him that US troops in Port-au-Prince have found more weapons on premises connected with the Lavalas movement of elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide than at FRAPH offices. "The officer also asserted that the armed Lavalas groups included 'individuals trained in Cuba and Libya,'" the consultant said. "The officer was unable to explain why Lavalas partisans targeted by the military have been almost completely unable to defend themselves if they are so well armed." [Haiti Info 12/3/94] [Update #249 mentioned that UN troops in Somalia had assaulted laid-off Somali workers demonstrating against the US construction firm of Brown & Root. We failed to note that Brown & Root has been contracted to build four bases for the US military in Haiti, at an initial cost of $25 million. [Progressive, November 1994, from Washington Post 9/23/94]] 2. HAITI PAYS DEBTS, POSTPONES VOTE In press conferences on Nov. 25 and 29, Haitian prime minister Smarck Michel and finance minister Marie Michele Rey announced their government's timetable for the next 14 months. Haiti will pay $83 million for overdue interest by the middle of December, using $13 million of its own money and $70 million in loans. Structural adjustment programs (SAPs), including the sale of state enterprises and the cutting of more than 20,000 government jobs, will start in January. The scheduled December legislative elections, however, will be postponed at least until March 1995. Legislative terms, which ended Dec. 1, will be extended until February; after that, Michel says, he will rule by decree. [Haiti Info 12/3/94] The Washington Post writes that US officials "suddenly cannot find enough good things to say about" President Aristide, who won office in 1990 running in opposition to the sort of US-sponsored neoliberal policies his new government is implementing. "He is doing more than we ever dreamed he would. He is doing everything right," an unnamed senior US official told the paper. "It's like a dream." [WP 12/1/94] Aristide has apparently also acquiesced to rightists in the Vatican: two days after his return to Haiti on Oct. 15, he sent Cap-Haitien bishop Francois Gayot his resignation from the priesthood. Rome and the conservative Haitian bishops had been trying to remove Aristide from the priesthood ever since he began organizing in the early 1980s in the Port-au-Prince slums. [Haiti Progres 11/23-29/94] But Inter Press Service reports that inside Haiti "analysts already detect signs of disillusionment within the ranks of the president's fervent supporters..." "More than one month after...Aristide's triumphant return heralded a new era, Haitians are still waiting for the benefits they thought would have been generated from the change." Among the problems the news service cites are delays in receiving promised international funding, the job actions at public utilities such as ADH and the devastation caused by tropical storm Gordon in mid-November. The Defense Ministry is now working with a provisional death toll of 2,000 from the storm. [IPS 11/24/94] 3. FORMER PRESIDENT WINS SECOND TERM IN URUGUAY Julio Maria Sanguinetti of the Colorado Party narrowly won the Nov. 27 presidential elections in Uruguay with 31.4% of the vote. The ruling National (Blanco) Party got 30.2%, while the Encuentro Progresista (EP) coalition--dominated by the leftist Frente Amplio (Broad Front)--took 30%. Another coalition, Nuevo Espacio (New Space), came in a distant fourth with 5.04%. [Latin America Data Base Notisur 12/2/94 from Notimex, Inter Press Service, United Press International, Associated Press, Spanish news service EFE, Agence France-Presse] According to Britain's Financial Times, the EP's Tabare Vazquez may have in fact finished with the most individual votes of any presidential candidate, but could not win the presidency because the EP failed to win at a party level. Uruguay's unusual electoral system combines primaries with general elections, allowing parties to run several candidates for each office. Vazquez was the EP's only presidential candidate, while the Colorado and Blanco Parties each ran several. [FT 11/29/94] More than 90% of Uruguay's 2.3 million eligible voters--out of a population of 3.2 million--went to the polls. [LADB Notisur 12/2/94 from Notimex, IPS, UPI, AP, EFE, AFP] Voting is mandatory in Uruguay and abstention is punishable with a fine of about $15. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 11/28/94 from AFP] Some 40,000 voters who live in Buenos Aires and other areas of neighboring Argentina--and who were not counted in pre-election voter preference surveys--were expected to travel to Uruguay for the polling; all three major parties organized voter transportation. [Inter Press Service 11/21/94, 11/22/94] Before the elections, the Frente Amplio criticized the Electoral Board's decision to assign only six out of a total 36 election supervisors to Montevideo. [Inter Press Service 11/21/94] In addition to choosing a new president, voters elected 30 senators [there are a total of 31 seats in the senate, with one reserved for the country's vice president], 99 deputies [not 90 as reported in Updates #251 and #252], and provincial mayors and councilpeople for Uruguay's 19 departments. [The "mayors" head departments, not just municipalities, and are more like governors than mayors.] The leftist Frente Amplio (FA) coalition took the Montevideo mayoral post for a second consecutive term with the victory of architect and environmentalist Mariano Arana, who won about 40% of the vote, far exceeding the 33% won in the FA's 1989 Montevideo victory. A socialist, Arana has been a university professor for the past 25 years and is a strong environmentalist. [LADB Notisur 12/2/94 from Notimex, IPS, UPI, AP, EFE, AFP; IPS 11/29/94] Narrowly defeated in his 1984 campaign for mayor of Montevideo by a Colorado Party candidate, Arana was elected to the senate in 1989. [ED-LP 11/28/94 from AP] The Frente Amplio is now expected to undergo some internal shifts based on the latest elections, in which the moderate "Uruguay Assembly" sector headed by Senator Danilo Astori emerged as the most important group of the coalition. [ED-LP 11/30/94 from AP] After the Communist Party--which in 1989 won over 30 percent of the coalition's votes--fractured in 1990, Astori, a former dean of the Department of Economics at the University of the Republic, focused on winning the newly independent votes for his sector. In this year's elections, the Uruguay Assembly was the coalition's most voted faction, tripling the votes obtained by the second runner-up, the Socialist Party headed by Tabare Vazquez. Astori, who had disagreed with the socialists over the choice of Vazquez as the coalition's presidential candidate, said Sunday's elections "were also an internal election" for the FA, within which his sector will now have the most political clout. [IPS 11/29/94] While the left won in Montevideo and significantly increased its number of votes in the rest of Uruguay [IPS 11/29/94], leadership of the other 18 departments was split between the traditional parties, with eleven going to the Blancos and seven to the Colorados. But the national elections mirrored the three-way presidential split, and analysts all agreed that the traditional political system dominated by the Blanco and Colorado parties for more than a century has been uprooted by the rise of Uruguay's leftist movement. In the new Congress, the Colorados will have 11 senators--including the seat reserved for the country's vice president--and 34 deputies; the Blancos will have 10 senators and 31 deputies; and the EP nine senators and 30 deputies. Nuevo Espacio will have 1 senator and four deputies. [LADB Notisur 12/2/94 from Notimex, IPS, UPI, AP, EFE, AFP] Among the EP's deputies is Jose Mujica Cordano, one of the historic leaders of the National Liberation Movement-Tupamaros, considered to have been one of Latin America's best organized guerrilla organizations. Another Tupamaro leader running on the EP ticket, Jorge Zabalza, was elected to the Montevideo city council. The Tupamaros joined the leftist Frente Amplio (Broad Front) coalition in 1989. [ED-LP 11/30/94 from AP] Anticipating that no party would win both the presidency and a majority in congress, on Nov. 15 the Blancos, Colorados, and the Nuevo Espacio coalition signed a "governability pact" in which they pledged to cooperate on major issues. While the EP did not sign the pact, it did participate in the discussions as an observer. The pact attempts to lay the foundation for avoiding political gridlock. "Today we have three major political forces on the scene that have equal weight and size, and that means that the entire political system must be committed to finding the road to understanding," said Sanguinetti after his victory. [LADB Notisur 12/2/94 from Notimex, IPS, UPI, AP, EFE, AFP] Sanguinetti and his vice president, Hugo Batalla--leader of the social democratic Party for the Government of the People (PGP), who ran on the ticket following an agreement brokered with the Colorado Party--will take office on March 1, 1995. [IPS 11/28/94] Sanguinetti's presidential victory makes him the second person to be elected twice to Uruguay's presidency; the first was Colorado Party giant Jose Batlle y Odonez, who served from 1903-1907 and again from 1911-1915. Batlle is credited with modernizing Uruguay and establishing the continent's first welfare state. [LADB Notisur 12/2/94 from Notimex, IPS, UPI, AP, EFE, AFP] The 58-year-old Sanguinetti, an attorney and former journalist, served as president from 1985-1990 after heading the 1985 negotiations that led to a return to democratic rule after a 12- year repressive military regime (1973-1985). During his first term in office, Sanguinetti, with the support of the Blancos, drafted a controversial amnesty for members of the military who had committed human rights violations during the years of military rule. The legislation, called the "Full Stop" law, set off massive public protests that forced the government to call a national referendum. In the referendum, voters approved the amnesty, which effectively eliminated trials of military leaders as well as any accountability for abuses during the dictatorship. Political analysts and Sanguinetti himself attribute his victory to his being a "known entity." In addition, Sanguinetti's campaign promise to maintain most state benefits for retired and active workers earned him significant support. Retirees make up fully 20% of the population, while an additional 300,000 persons are on the state payroll. Rather than slash benefits and initiate public sector layoffs, Sanguinetti says he will reduce the state payroll by putting a freeze on new hiring and encouraging early retirement. However, he also advocates raising the retirement age from the present 60 years for men and 55 for women to 65 and 60 respectively. [LADB Notisur 12/2/94 from Notimex, IPS, UPI, AP, EFE, AFP] Uruguay's high number of retirees and public employees, along with the 600,000 people who are unemployed, are a heavy burden for an economically active population of only 1.3 million. [IPS 11/28/94] During this election campaign, the nation's economy was a major concern to voters. Sanguinetti favors maintaining a strong state sector, as well as policies that protect Uruguay's industrial and agricultural sectors from unrestricted foreign competition. Sanguinetti describes himself as "navigating the waters between neoliberalism and statism." Sanguinetti's most important task during the next five years will be guiding Uruguay's entrance into Mercosur, the trade pact between Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. While his Blanco Party opponents were neoliberals who pushed rapid implementation of free trade, Sanguinetti, advocates a more cautious approach, though he is not expected to restore protectionist trade barriers that have been torn down during the Lacalle administration. [LADB Notisur 12/2/94 from Notimex, IPS, UPI, AP, EFE, AFP] 4. NEW PRESIDENT FOR A DIVIDED MEXICO Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon of Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) started his six-year term as federal president on Dec. 1, succeeding Carlos Salinas de Gortari. The ceremony was attended by 12 heads of state, including Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada, Chilean president Eduardo Frei, Costa Rican president Jose Maria Figueres, Cuban president Fidel Castro, Nicaraguan president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro and Spanish prime minister Felipe Gonzalez. Vice President Al Gore represented the US. [New York Times 12/2/94; Washington Post 12/2/94; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 122/4/94 from EFE] Zedillo inherits a divided country and a divided party. The ambiguities were reflected in the cabinet appointments he announced on Nov. 30. The new finance secretary will be Jaime Serra Puche, secretary of commerce in the outgoing Salinas cabinet and a strong proponent of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). His appointment indicates continuity with Salinas' drastic neoliberal economic programs. However, the chief architect of the Salinas policy, Pedro Aspe, reportedly turned down any position on the new cabinet. Breaking with tradition, Zedillo named a top official from an opposition party, Antonio Lozano Gracia of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), as attorney general. The appointment of an outsider is taken as a sign that Zedillo plans a thorough investigation of the assassinations this year of Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta--Zedillo's predecessor as the PRI's presidential candidate--and of PRI general secretary Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu. Both murders are generally thought to involve faction fights within the ruling party. However, Zedillo also appointed PRI president Ignacio Pichardo Pagaza as secretary of energy, mines and industry. Pichardo has been implicated in an alleged coverup in the Ruiz Massieu case, as has current PRI general secretary Maria de los Angeles Moreno. Moreno is expected to move up to the party presidency. [Associated Press 11/30/94; Financial Times (UK) 11/30/94, 12/1/94, 12/2/94; NYT 12/1/94; Wall Street Journal 12/1/94] 5. POLICE AND PROTESTERS CLASH AS MEXICAN PRESIDENT TAKES OFFICE Similar ambiguities appeared in the new Mexican president's relations with the country's left opposition. On Nov. 28 Zedillo held a meeting with federal legislators from the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Despite several efforts, in his six years in office Salinas never succeeded in getting the PRD parliamentary group to sit down with him. [La Jornada (Mexico) 11/27/94] The result of Zedillo's conciliatory gesture was that PRD legislators didn't disrupt the inauguration, although a number boycotted the ceremony. The PRD delegation had routinely disrupted official appearances by Salinas, including his last state of the union address on Nov. 1. [Reuter 12/1/94] However, about 4,000 PRD supporters rallied peacefully in Mexico City's main plaza, the Zocalo, on Nov. 30 to protest alleged PRI- managed fraud in local elections in Veracruz and Tabasco last month. [AP 11/30/94] Many were campesinos who had driven up from the southern states in a caravan the weekend before. [LJ 11/27/94] On the day of the inauguration some 6,000 PRD supporters came to a rally their party's 1994 presidential candidate, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano, called at the Monument of the Revolution, some blocks from the Zocalo. Afterwards, a group of about 300 tried to march to the Zocalo, where the new president was reviewing a military parade. The demonstrators clashed with police and burned a patrol car. PRD member Jorge Calderon said his party had nothing to do with the violence, which he attributed to a group called Campesino Torch. [United Press International 12/1/94] The Red Cross reported that about 40 protesters were injured, five seriously. A photographer for the moderate leftist daily La Jornada was badly beaten by police, according to the paper [Reuter 12/1/94]--an inauspicious beginning for the new administration. Correction: Following our source, we wrote in Update #252 that Tabasco was the state that gave Cardenas his highest percentage of votes in the Aug. 21 elections, according to the official count. Cardenas actually did better in Michoacan (35%) and Guerrero (33.71%). [The Other Side of Mexico #36, July-October 1994] 6. MEXICO: DEC. 8 DEADLINE FOR CHIAPAS? The new Mexican president's immediate problem is likely to be the southern state of Chiapas, where the local PRD refuses to accept the official victor in the Aug. 21 gubernatorial race. The PRI's Eduardo Robledo Rincon is to take office on Dec. 8. Amado Avendano Figueroa, an independent who ran on the PRD line, said on Dec. 2: "We are committed to civil resistance. If this civil resistance doesn't work, and if the government tries to impose the imposter, no option remains." Avendano's supporters launched a series of marches and highway blockades that day, and vowed to storm the governor's palace in state capital of Tuxtla Gutierrez to block Robledo's inauguration. [AP 12/2/94] While stressing his desire for "a peaceful way out of the conflict," PRD president Porfirio Munoz Ledo said on Nov. 26 that the national party supported the state group's absolute rejection of a Robledo government. [LJ 11/27/94] Zedillo has indicated that he will not use the expedient Salinas favored in disputed local races--appointing an interim governor. A confrontation over the governorship could easily escalate into renewed war between the federal government and the rebels of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), which has observed a ceasefire since Jan. 12. Pacific News Service reports that "the people here in Chiapas already feel as if the state has shifted on to a war footing. Road building is frenzied, especially into and around Zapatista-controlled zones. Construction workers and government teachers, warned by Zapatistas to leave for safety, are taking Christmas vaction early. Armed Mexican troops jog and drill on steaming jungle roads to accustom themselves to the Chiapas heat." [PNS 12/2/94] On Nov. 30 the Buenos Aires newspaper Clarin reported that Argentine military experts involved in the "dirty war" of the 1970s have traveled to Chiapas to advise Mexican forces. Human rights groups say the Argentine military murdered around 30,000 people during the repression in the 1970s; Argentine advisers are reported to have trained the Nicaraguan contras and Honduran and Salvadoran counterinsurgent forces in the 1980s. [UPI 11/30/94] Adding to the tension, on Dec. 1 a group of about 100 armed ranchers attacked the Prusia estate, Albino Corzo municipality, which has been occupied by some 40 campesinos. The ranchers fired into a group of women and children, killing three and wounding three. Later a group of campesinos arrived and succeeded in detaining the attackers. The Coalition of Non-Government Organizations for Peace (CONPAZ) is calling for faxes to interim governor Javier Lopez Moreno (011-91-961-20917) "demanding no use of force to resolve the delicate situation in the Prusia estate." [CONPAZ Action Alert 12/2/94, posted on New York Transfer] 7. UN VERIFICATION MISSION FINALLY ARRIVES IN GUATEMALA Nov. 21 marked the formal inauguration of the United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA), which is to monitor compliance with the human rights accord signed Mar. 29 by the government and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) guerrillas. Guatemalans have been waiting for eight months for the mission to arrive, since the March accord called for its installation "as soon as possible." Human rights abuses have increased since the accord was signed, according to Guatemala's human rights procurator. MINUGUA is facing an overwhelming caseload with limited resources. The mission was given a six-month renewable mandate and will consist of some 300 UN observers. This is the first time the Guatemalan army has allowed outside investigations of human rights violations and unlimited access to its installations. In the past, international human rights groups looking into allegations of abuse have always been denied spontaneous inspections of army and government facilities. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #43, 11/22/94] In its first official action since arriving in the country, on Nov. 23 MINUGUA observed as 51 residents of Pueblo Nuevo, Tajumulco in San Marcos province, turned in their rifles ending twelve years of unpaid involuntary service in the paramilitary Civil Self-Defense Patrols (PAC). Though they are supposed to protect villagers from rebels, the PACs have been widely criticized for human rights abuses and exist in many areas where there is no guerrilla presence. Under the human rights accord signed in March, Guatemala's human rights procurator must verify that service in the PACs is voluntary and that members can quit without fear of harassment or threats. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #44, 11/29/94] Meanwhile, Monica Pinto, the UN's independent human rights adviser for Guatemala, arrived in Guatemala Nov. 16 to check government compliance with recommendations she made in a report presented to the U.N. Human Rights Commission in late 1993. Summarizing her findings on Nov. 28, Pinto expressed concern about "the increased militarization of the country, the enormous increase in violence, the persistence of poverty, the marginalization of the indigenous majority, and the need to make serious commitments for the return of refugees," as well as what she called an "astonishing" increase in threats against grassroots leaders. She also criticized what she called the "disproportionate police repression" used by the Immediate Response Force (FRI) when its members attacked students at San Carlos University (USAC) on Nov. 11 [see Update #251] and by the National Police for their Aug. 24 attack on campesinos at San Juan El Horizonte plantation in Coatepeque [see Updates #239, #244]. She said the occupation of San Juan and other plantations was justified given plantation owners' refusal to pay minimum wage. Pinto also dismissed President Ramiro de Leon Carpio's claim that the PACs are necessary to protect Guatemalans from guerrillas, and criticized the government for violating the March accord by failing to register and document members of the Ixcan Communities in Resistance (CPRs) as civilians. Pinto will issue new recommendations to the UN Human Rights Commission in January 1995. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #44, 11/29/94] 8. GUATEMALAN PROTESTERS END OCCUPATION, CONTINUE HUNGER STRIKE On Nov. 18, some 100 Immediate Reaction Forces (FRI) agents and riot police surrounded the National Reconstruction Committee (CRN), giving protesters occupying the building 15 minutes to leave or face a confrontation. The 84 former CRN workers, who were laid off when the government closed the project, had been occupying the CRN offices since Sept. 30. At the same time, thousands of tons of donated food are rotting in CRN warehouses. A day earlier, in a last-ditch effort to get the government to meet their demands, another 70 laid-off CRN workers took over the offices of the Finance Ministry demanding immediate severance pay and reinstatement in other government institutions. The protesters were also calling for the safe return of their union leader, Agustin Rosalio Monzon, kidnapped Nov. 7 [see Update #252]. Under threat of being forced out by riot police, workers left the building at midnight after Chief Prosecutor Ramses Cuestas promised to personally carry their demands to the president. In front of the National Palace, three other former CRN workers continue their hunger strike to protest the project's closure; as of Nov. 22, they had not eaten for 44 days. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #43, 11/22/94] Monzon was subsequently freed, it was reported Nov. 29. He reports that his kidnappers interrogated him about the plans and activities of his union and of the National Federation of Guatemalan State Workers Unions (FENASTEG). [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #44, 11/29/94] 9. SLANDER CHARGES AGAINST SALVADORAN REBEL LEADER DISMISSED On Nov. 23, Judge Antonio Garay dismissed slander charges against Salvadoran former rebel commander Joaquin Villalobos, who had accused a prominent businessman, Orlando de Sola, of financing death squads during the country's 12-year civil war. Garay argued that Villalobos' accusations were made "in defense of public interest," and that the same charges against de Sola had already been printed by the New York Times in 1989. Villalobos, head of the People's Renewal Expression (ERP)--one of the five member groups of the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FSLN)--was jailed Oct. 18 [see Update 247] and spent a month in prison before the Salvadoran Supreme Court ordered his release on Nov. 18. De Sola had offered to drop the charges he brought against Villalobos if the ERP leader agreed to apologize publicly, but the former rebel commander adamantly refused to do so. [Latin America Data Base Notisur 12/2/94 from AFP, ACAN-EFE, Inter Press Service, UPI] In other news, San Salvador archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas died on Nov. 26 of a heart attack at the age of 72. Like his predecessor Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero, Rivera y Damas was a staunch defender of human rights; he became archbishop in February of 1983, nearly three years after Romero's March 1980 murder. [El Diario-La Prensa 11/28/94 from AP] 10. NICARAGUA NEWS BRIEFS: ORTEGA HOSPITALIZED, WORKER PROTESTS Former Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega Saavedra, general secretary of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), is resting at a Cuban hospital after a medical checkup showed he had a heart attack three months ago, Cuban news agency Prensa Latina reported on Dec. 1. The seriousness of Ortega's condition was not known; he has appeared fit and has continued to make public appearances in recent months. Ortega was in Cuba to attend a conference on international solidarity with the island. [Reuter 12/2/94]... Some 3,000 Nicaraguan public employees from the telecommunications, energy and education sectors held a protest march in Managua against the government's economic policies of privatization. Privatization of the state telephone and mail company (TELCOR) and the Nicaragua Energy Institute (INE) would leave 2,000 employees out of work, according to union leaders. The workers are demanding that the National Assembly reject a bill authorizing the sale of 40% of TELCOR's stock. Public school teachers, whose salaries have been frozen since 1991, are threatening a national strike in January if the government doesn't grant them an 80% raise. [Diario Las Americas 12/3/94 from AFP]... Health workers organized in the pro-Sandinista union FETSALUD went out on strike Nov. 29 to demand better wages and an increase in the 1995 budget for health care. Nurses in Nicaragua earn an average monthly salary of $50, while specialized doctors earn about $179 a month. [El Diario-La Prensa 11/29/94 from EFE] 11. IN OTHER NEWS... About 70 inmates were still at large on Nov. 29 after 100 took advantage of a power failure to escape through sewage tunnels from a high security wing of Tocuyito prison in Carabobo, Venezuela. Earlier police and media reports said up to 30 prisoners and guards might have been killed during the breakout and the ensuing fighting around the prison, but a Carabobo police spokesperson later told Reuter no deaths were confirmed. The local television station Venevision said there had been only 15 guards for 1,800 prisoners at Tocuyito. The international human rights group Amnesty International has condemned Venezuela's jails as the most dangerous in Latin America. [Reuter 11/29/94]... Caetano Cariani, the Brazilian tourist who videotaped Francisco Martin Duran's Oct. 29 rifle attack on the White House in Washington, died suddenly on Nov. 18 of a mysterious and unidentified bacterial infection after returning from his US visit, according to a wire service story by United Press International published in Peruvian daily La Republica. Surgeon Fabio Linardi, who treated Cariani, said the bacterial infection that killed him was "acute, rapid and violent." "In my 14 years of medical practice, I've never seen anything like it," said Linardi. Cariani was a successful businessman in Brazil. [ED-LP 11/29/94]... Widespread protests in Suriname against rising inflation (about 120%) continued for a second week. About 250 college students marched to parliament and demanded affordable prices for food, transportation and text books. Forty public sector doctors started a strike on Nov. 28 to demand higher salaries and reduced prices for medical supplies in this former Dutch colony of 400,000 people, the smallest country in South America. Schools have been closed since Nov. 22, when the government shut them down after violent protests by high school students left 20 injured. The country's borders were also closed off for five days because of a strike by about 75 customs officers, but they have been reopened since the workers reached an agreement with the government. A group representing about 300 public bus owners in the capital city has threatened to strike on Dec. 1 if the transportation minister fails to raise bus fares to 25 guilders from 10. The government meanwhile continued talks with police officers over salary hikes. [AP 11/29/94] 12. UPCOMING EVENTS IN THE NEW YORK CITY AREA For more information, call NSN at 212-674-9499. Events listed are not necessarily endorsed by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network. 12/5 MON - 12/10 SUN - "1st Cultural and Political Week in Support of People of Chiapas and the EZLN." Political forums, dance, photography, sculpture, video. Charas, 605 East 9th St, between Ave B & C. Call 212-533-6835 for schedule. 12/10 SAT, 6:30 PM - "Time to Transform the World Bank & the IMF," with Dennis Brutus & Erich Mathias. Brecht Forum, 122 W 27th St, 10th fl. $15 (with dinner). 212-242-4201. 12/10 SAT, 9 PM - Dance to benefit Cuba. Call IFCO at 212-926-5757. 12/10 SAT, 10 PM - Posada-Dance to benefit Chiapas & EZLN. Charas, 605 E. 9th St (Aves B & C). $10. 212-533-6835. 12/15 THU, 6:30 PM - "Counter-Summit of the Americas." Speakers from El Salvador, Haiti, Brazil and Cuba on the neoliberal project and how we can fight it. Hunter College West Bldg Rm 217, E 68th St & Lexington Ave. Free. 212-674-9499. -- + 212-675-9690 NY TRANSFER NEWS COLLECTIVE 212-675-9663 + + Since 1985: Information for the Rest of Us + + e-mail: nyt@blythe.org info: info@blythe.org +